Inmate Seeks Release Due To Her Pregnancy

FORT LAUDERDALE — The attorney for a pregnant inmate said to be suffering severe medical complications asked a judge Wednesday to release her from prison, saying her medical needs were being ignored.

Laura Press, who was recently transferred from the Broward County Jail to the Broward Correctional Institution in southwest Broward County, has breast cysts that may be cancerous, feet so swollen she can no longer walk and ringworm across her entire back, according to her attorney, Neil Schuster of Denver, Colo.

Press, who is four months pregnant, also had a vaginal infection while in the county jail and has a history of problem pregnancies, he said.

But, despite numerous complaints, no one at the Broward County Jail would treat her, and it wasn`t until she arrived at Broward Correctional Institution that she received any care, Schuster said in a court motion.

``In fact, the Broward County Jail personnel opined on more than one occasion that none of their attending medical practitioners had sufficient expertise to treat Laura J. Press, so the defendant went unattended,`` the motion stated.

``Ms. Press was subjected to repeated scorn, ridicule, and other deprivation on each occasion on which she requested medical attention.``

Schuster, who had an office in Miami Beach when he first began representing Press, is asking Broward Circuit Judge Arthur Franza to reduce her sentence to time served, saying she has been punished enough and is not getting adequate care. The hearing is scheduled for Friday.

Most of Schuster`s criticism was aimed at the Broward County Jail, but he said his client still isn`t getting enough attention in the state maximum- security prison for women.

He said Press saw an obstetrician Monday who told her that her baby was probably dead because she couldn`t detect a heartbeat. Press said she was then told she wouldn`t be able to see a doctor to confirm that for at least a week.

After Schuster complained, jail officials allowed her on Wednesday to see another doctor, who examined her and said the baby was in fact alive.

``What happens to all those girls who don`t have mothers and lawyers pulling for them?`` Schuster said in a telephone interview from his home.

The lawyer said he became aware of the inmate`s medical problems when he received a telephone call from her mother.

While in the county jail, Schuster said, Press was in a cell adjacent to the one in which Kathryn Ann Entress died two weeks ago after an asthma attack, ``under circumstances which suggest that negligent jail medical care may have been the cause.``

The Broward Sheriff`s Office has just completed an investigation into Entress` death, but the results are not yet available.

Schuster`s motion is the latest in a series of complaints against Prison Health Services, a company that provides medical care in the Broward and Palm Beach County Jails. Officials of the firm could not be reached for comment.

Officials in charge of the Broward Correctional Institution and the Broward County Jail Wednesday night said they were not authorized to comment on Schuster`s allegations.

Schuster also said that after Press was transferred to Broward Correctional Institution Oct. 1, she was forced to sleep on a mattress that had been used by an inmate with AIDS, and that prison personnel refused to replace it.

Press, 21, of Dania was sentenced Aug. 28 to a year and a day in prison after a burglary conviction, court records showed. Shortly after she was sentenced, she learned she was pregnant, her lawyer said.

Schuster wrote two letters in September to Broward Sheriff Nick Navarro, complaining that his client had not been allowed to see a nurse or doctor. He mentioned in the letter that Press had already suffered a miscarriage, had had two abortions and one stillbirth.

He said jail personnel also failed to give her the amount of protein required during pregnancy during most of her stay in the county jail.

Nevertheless, ``the Broward County Jail chose not to do so and it was not until this defendant finally reached the Broward Correctional (Institution) that she finally received some semblance of medical care,`` Schuster said.

When she arrived at the prison earlier this month, she was diagnosed as having at least two cysts the size of golf balls that may be cancerous, he said. Her family has a history of breast cancer, according to the motion.

Her feet were swollen and oozing pus, which may have been an adverse reaction to medication she had been given in jail, he said.

``The medical staff at the (Broward Correctional Institution) has purportedly refused to treat the ringworm, which was contracted at the Broward County Jail until it `covers her entire body,` `` he said.

Press wrote a letter to Franza Oct. 8 asking that he show sympathy for her and her unborn child.

``I have truly learned in the past two months a lesson that will be with me always. I cannot change the past, but I certainly feel my future upon release will be much fuller and free from the things that led me to my present state,`` she wrote. ``Please, your honor, I ask not just for me, but for my child.``